JERUSALEM: Israeli leaders rejected proposals to secure the Gaza Strip's breached frontier with Egypt with additional Egyptian border guards or an international force, government officials said today. Israel's Foreign Ministry had suggested giving the nod to Egypt to double the number of its guards at the border to 1,500. Under an Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement, the number of troops that can be deployed along the frontier is limited.

The officials said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his security cabinet, which includes his foreign and defence ministers, rebuffed the idea, as well as the deployment of any international force at the frontier. Israeli defence officials have questioned whether Cairo is making a real effort to secure the Gaza border, which Hamas Islamists in control of the territory blasted open at the Rafah crossing on January 23 in defiance of an Israeli-led blockade.

The minister of defence thinks it won't make any difference whether there are more (Egyptian) policemen or less, a defence official said, explaining Ehud Barak s opposition to the proposal, which could entail reopening a long-standing Israeli-Egyptian border agreement. After allowing tens of thousands of Palestinians to cross into the Sinai desert last month, Egypt closed the border on Sunday to Palestinians seeking entry. One person was killed and dozens were wounded in clashes that ensued between Egyptian border guards and Palestinian militants after the frontier was sealed. In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas again offered to take charge of the Gaza Strip s borders. His Fatah faction lost control of the territory to Hamas Islamists in fighting in June.

We, as an authority, are ready to resume our responsibility for the crossings and Hamas should stay away from this subject, he told reporters. HAMAS ROLE Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said in Gaza the group would never agree to be frozen out of any border arrangements. Hamas is committed to ending all forms of the continued siege and it will not accept the continuation of the closure of crossings that turned Gaza into a big prison, Abu Zuhri said. Under an accord in 2005,the year Israel pulled its troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip, the Rafah crossing with Egypt was overseen by European Union monitors who were not allowed to carry weapons. Citing security concerns, Israel frequently closed the Gaza-Egypt border by blocking the EU monitors, based in Israel, from accessing Rafah through the Israeli crossing point with Gaza at Kerem Shalom.

At the security cabinet meeting, ministers decided to approve the construction of a fence along the Israel-Egypt frontier, which cuts through desert areas. Hamas s breaching of the Rafah frontier has raised fears in Israel, where suicide bombers belonging to Hamas struck on Monday, that Palestinian militants could make their way into the Jewish state through Egypt.

Source : UNI